Hate the Yankees, Love the Trade!

The Evil Empire pulled off what appears to be a guarantee for another World Series title by acquiring Randy Johnson in a trade with the Diamondbacks. In return, Arizona gets pitchers Javier Vazquez and Brad Halsey and catcher Dioner Navarro plus $9 million to offset Vazquez’s salary.

Because I hate the Yankees, I love this trade. This trade just might be the final hole in a sinking ship. The Yankee dynasty that began in 1996 is nearing its end and is being sunk from within. 

The Boss’s mandated spending spree has New York’s payroll topping $200 million. Prior to this season, they signed Jason Giambi, Vazquez, Jose Contreras, Hideki Matsui, and Gary Sheffield to big contracts. They also traded for big contracts in Alex Rodriguez and Kevin Brown. Add in the new contracts of Jaret Wright, Carl Pavano, and Randy Johnson and New York has high priced players at every position.

So, what did this do for the Yankees? Get them an old and expensive team with a depleted farm system. Through years of trades, loss of early draft picks due to free agent compensation, and failure to sign drafted players, such as Mark Prior, the Yankee cupboard is bare. They could barely scrape enough from the bottom of the barrel to complete the Johnson trade.

All this shows that the Yankees have failed to realize that the heart of any winning team is home grown. For the Yankees, Jeter, Posada, Williams, Rivera, and Pettitte were all drafted and developed from within. They also developed players who could come up and contribute for injured players and players who were used to acquire help in trades.

Now they are left with a team full of bad contracts of aging, formerly good players. Is this a sign of the end of Big George’s days as the head of the Yankees? Is he gearing up for one last hurrah?  Either way, the team cannot buy its way out of its failures forever. The Yankees might win this year but the future looks bleak and that looks good to me.